Teaching is a learned activity. As such, the act of teaching requires that the teacher have a mental model of what it means to teach. When teachers teach in ways which appear to an outside observer to be ineffective or poorly thought-out, it is because they are using a flawed model for understanding teaching and learning. Blaming teachers for having flawed models is like blaming students for not knowing things; it doesn’t solve the problem, it may even exacerbate it.
Teaching is also incredibly complex. Once a teacher starts teaching, it can take ten years before they begin to plateau in terms of their expertise. Unfortunately, most educators work towards improving their practice in isolation, and receive little direct feedback on their work. Many of the colleagues I have taught with over the years have never received formal feedback on their teaching! Often the feedback educators do receive is inconsistent, haphazard, and hard to utilize. The best feedback most educators currently get about the effectiveness of their work is the direct impact it has on student learning in their classroom.
If we want to improve education, aside from continue to work on issues of inequity and division in our society, we must plan schools so that teachers are given more time to collaborate and plan their work together. We must also build in an expectation that the job of teaching includes the job of learning more about teaching, and that constructive feedback about one’s work is the norm, rather than an oddity. We must embed learning about teaching into what it means to be a teacher.
Anh Nguyen says:
Yes, I completely agree with you that teacher are made, not born. We have to learn and training to be a good teacher. Nobody perfect, teachers are learning and practicing while teaching. Teachers can learn through their mistakes and feebacks. I have same thoughts as you that if you want to improve education, we need to plan , create activity, work with the plan and build up experiences through effectiveness.
January 22, 2014 — 10:48 pm
Taking up School Teaching as a Career says:
Well said, i too agree with your thought of ‘Teacher is made not born’. Teaching is a profession of great resposibilty, it is like inpsiring kids, guiding them, teach them the difference between right and wrong, it is like building pillar for kids career. Thanks for sharing this wonderful post.
April 19, 2014 — 12:24 am
Victor Abel Snr says:
Certainly, teachers are made.If teaching skills were what a man could have naturally ,the essence of teachers’education would have stood defeated
June 28, 2015 — 4:47 pm
Israel says:
Well done!
October 20, 2015 — 3:14 am
Mahab Pari says:
good teacher are made
February 10, 2016 — 4:49 am
Mahab Pari says:
Good/effective are made not born. When a baby has been given birth to, the brain was empty, he could not deffertiate good from bad ontill another has to install knowledge into his before he learn to become a teacher. So teacher are often made over time through educational training.
February 10, 2016 — 4:50 am
Mabonde says:
Teachers are born because a person have innate that influence even to understand in learning also personality of a person is not learn but is a biological factor( genes) or nature.
April 14, 2016 — 8:19 pm
David Wees says:
Obviously based on this post I disagree. What’s your evidence that knowing how to teach is something you are born with?
April 15, 2016 — 1:27 pm
NAPOKOLI KENNETH says:
Is true teachers are made not born because they have code of conduct that non-professional teachers do not potray.
May 5, 2016 — 1:07 pm
Maryam Usman Omotizi says:
I strongly agree that a teacher is made and not born! Others may argue that not everyone possesses the qualities of a good teacher therefore a teacher is born and not made. But the fact is; if a teacher is actually born and not made, education will not come to being. The word ‘learning’ wouldn’t even exist. Every teacher must have undergone socialisation and the formal school system before being qualified a teacher. And all these processes are ‘making ‘. This means that one is being pulled out from ignorance to knowledge, nurtured and moulded to its full potential. But if you’re born teacher. it means you don’t even need to be educated because you already have an in born capacity which is false! Learning how to say; mummy, daddy from one-word stage, it means you’re being taught(made) you were not born with it. Therefore I stand to say that every good teacher is made! If you are educated and didn’t undergo any teacher training, in some cases, teaching will pose problem to you and managing the class rooms. So I teacher is moulded to be what he/she is today. And that’s why many professions are products of a teacher.
January 28, 2017 — 11:21 pm
Comr Abubakar G Balah says:
Before i was struggling, hustling to change course but after seeing this comment of yours i am simply convince without any strategies THANK YOU
April 9, 2019 — 8:01 am
John says:
I think we are discussing a difficult question here. Let’s ask our selves, if the teacher is born, s/he is born by who, and if s/he is made, who is the maker?
I think before a person is born, he is made, and when s/he has been born, the work of making doesn’t cease, it continues, and so the potentials and skills are discovered with the help of someone else, and so s/he can put them to use as a teacher, lawyer, salesman etc.
February 26, 2017 — 7:52 am
kakore, innocent wendelini says:
It is not true that teachers are made, because even other teacher learning more and they know more but sometimes fail to present or teach, so teacher must have spiritual s/he born with. if s/he has no that spiritual he/she will become bad teacher,so teachers are born. by kakore, innocent wendelini
March 29, 2017 — 7:31 am
Dalia Chalunda says:
One must be willing to accept the responsibility of being a teacher and posses the qualities of a good teacher in order to satisfy this position, whether being born or made.
March 21, 2018 — 1:39 pm
Hamis Masariga says:
Personally a teacher is made because passed in different training and practice that makes his or her professional. And not teacher born.
April 10, 2018 — 2:46 am
Daniel Obadiah says:
I agree with Maryam Usman Omotizi agument that teachers are made and not borne
December 2, 2018 — 7:07 pm
Azed says:
I too agree with Maryam Usman Omotizi
February 17, 2019 — 9:22 am
Joseph shera says:
Teacher are made but note born due to the diferent factors like .postive attitude,forgiving,respect,high ex
pectation and class management, and note that ateacher are not born,
April 28, 2019 — 9:50 am
Clemence Mbele says:
Teacher is born and not made she to the fact that a teacher is an ” epitorm”(an examplar to students according to John Dewey
May 1, 2019 — 4:22 am
OKUNADE says:
GREAT! I love your work
I’m talking fresh dude
June 7, 2019 — 9:19 pm
OKUNADE says:
I loved it so much i read it again
wow amazing
June 27, 2019 — 8:00 pm
Scovia Mthumba says:
I support the assumption that teachers are not born but made because they go for different trainings
April 30, 2020 — 5:03 am
Niña Dama says:
I believe that being a teacher can be learned but being a great teacher cannot just be learned. Of the many teachers that i have met and trained, great teachers have in them the heart and the passion to make themselves and their students better and better everyday. Experience and training will make good teachers but the nature or personality and genes are what sets apart a great teacher. As a person and as a mother, i have seen that at an early age, personalities differ as early as toddler age.
May 14, 2020 — 5:11 am